Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Let’s hope that the U.S. supported Iraqi army is not just going ahead now and blasting away everyone in sight, so’s to build the body count as per Vietnam to make it look like we’re winning. Hard to say with the growing lack of foreign correspondents outside of the Green Zone. The plan now seems to be to make Baghdad look like a real city long enough for a photo op and call it liberated. But the lack of real foreign correspondents has a bright side – the employment of local Iraqi amateurs is making it possible to see what is really going on.

An AP photo today shows five Iraqi “troops” arresting a suspect, each in varied degree of uniform. The one on the left doesn’t have his boots tied and he is too fat to be in any regular army. He is either growing a beard (do they have that?) or forgot to shave this month. But he does seem to have the proper hat to go with the rest of the uniform although it is too small and sits on top of his head. Two of the others have different hats – apparently their own hats as there is no military suggestion to them (one looks like a ski mask like IRA terrorists wear to hide their faces) - and one is only dressed in uniform on the bottom. On top he is wearing his own clothes. The ones who have uniform shirts have their sleeves rolled up at the wrist – one size fits all (Pentagon yard sale, no?). They seem to be carrying Russian-made Kalashnikov AK-47s instead of American weapons – good for local economy. And they are all wearing different shoes and boots. Perhaps the fat one got the regular issue boots because he appears to suffer from duck-footism. I think he might need a little more training. He looks like he has never held a weapon in his hands before and he is pointing it at his fellow soldier’s head. The one who seems to be in charge, who has a nice uniform and is wearing a folkloric Arab headdress, seems to be stomping on the suspect’s knee: Old School.

I’m sure the see-no-evil Congress will keep an eye on this as soon the distraction of Senate hearings on Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who the press is now calling a Warrior-Scholar, have passed. A phrase incidentally, MSM picked up from the web where it was used to indicate a kind of integrity, an innate spirit and a zen focus on task at hand – heart, we say, when it is found in a magnificent and gifted beast like Barbaro – not the fact that he has a degree from Princeton. So does Donald Rumsfeld.

Commenting on the hearings, David Broder of The Washington Post writes that senators of both parties recognized the value of probing this experienced and candid witness. With one exception.. . . Senator Clinton of New York used her time to make a speech about Iraq policy and did not ask a single question of the man who will be leading the military campaign.

But I’m feeling good about all this because I think we are seeing the end of it. Perhaps our collective failure has finally reached its fullest proposition

We crossed a river in this country on Tuesday night with Jim Webb’s rebuttal of the President’s State of the Union. Jim Webb is Pathfinder to a new political country. His speech was very possibly the first important event in the new century.

I’ve actually been feeling it longer than that. When I first listened to one of Jim Webb’s speeches last Spring I wrote that he is possibly the most effective public speaker since Malcolm X. What I meant was that he had a friendly and engaging quality to his conversation and an earthy Southern appeal to common people, but at the same time he could scare the pants of you.

He scared them the other night. It is the first time Wall Street suits heard themselves called Robber Barons by a prominent Senator since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, Poncho Villa and Woody Guthrie.

This weekend, TocqueDeville, a prominent blogger and critic, perfectly expressed the sea change we are experiencing on DKos.

Said TocqueDeville: “I've argued for some time that the real bias in the media is not left or right per say. It is pro Wall Street. And never has this bias been more transparent than with the coverage of Jim Webb's response to the State of the Union address.

“My interest in the way the establishment media would react to Webb's speech began somewhere around the time he said "fairly" in the same sentence with "globalization" and "international marketplace." By the time he got to "robber barons" and "corporate influence,” I was speechlessly stumbling for my laptop.

“You see, there are just some things one does not say in proper company. Much less in a national address. And Jim Webb said a few of them.”

I would like to add that this Wall Street influence is a conditioning that most Americans themselves are constantly "programmed into" - a subtlety that they are acclimated to and not fully aware of, but likewise, this is only a skin (and an inauthentic one) which can and will fall away quickly and from which a new self can (and will) awaken.

What Webb brings forth is something which is underneath - something which is there already; something which has always been there, but something the Dems left behind 25 years ago. TocqueDeville quotes one of Webb’s advisers on the substance of this insurgency: “Recently, to explain the devotion and commitment working class Americans once had to the Democratic Party, Mudcat Saunders described how in the old days, people had two photographs on their living room wall: Jesus and Franklin D. Roosevelt.”

Jim Webb is bringing the Democrats to a new country. And it is increasingly clear now even to the head-in-the-sand corporate media and its bastard child, the info-entertainment industry, that there is a division now in the Democratic Party. There are the upscale Globalists who married into the concept mid-term into Reagan’s regime, and there are now the new economic populists. Webb leads the charge, but John Edwards and Wesley Clark are both beginning to speak the same language. Last week Clark was speaking Union to a church-basement crowd in Montgomery, AL; a crowd as far from Wall St. as one could imagine. I would like to see Senators Clinton, Dodd, Biden and Obama address these NASCAR Moms on the same topic.

It is hard not to notice that the new insurgents, Webb, Edwards and Clark, are all proudly Southern. And to the reality-based, this should come as no surprise, for everything of consequence that has happened in this country since Eisenhower, - from Elvis to Oprah with Little Richard, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Johnson, Tammy Faye Baker and the Intimidating #3 in the Big Black Car in between - has risen from the South. The demographics on economy and population demand it. And as Newt Gingrich once pointed out, the rise of his own movement 20 years back depended on the New York delusion that they still ran things. They are still reality impaired: These Democrats show who and what they are as they constantly seek the photo op with the Conspicuously Rich and Ostentatious, such as Virgin Atlantic Airways’ Richard Branson, Mick Jagger and Bill Gates.

But things are beginning to change quickly. Even mainstream press has begun to look at Democratic front-runner Senator Clinton, darling of the DLC crowd, and find her leadership abilities to be less than sterling. On Sunday, Frank Rich of the NYTs calls her mission “unaccomplished.” He writes: “Mrs. Clinton has always been a follower of public opinion on the war, not a leader.”

Harvard’s John Kenneth Galbraith warned Democrats about becoming the Party of the Very Rich in his 1992 book, “The Culture of Contentment” but he was ignored (and even despised) by the new group that had come to power in the Democratic Party which featured most prominently Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. Still they send forth their candidate to the Presidential Election today. But the season has changed. It changed on Tuesday night.

Virginia has just crossed the psychological river sooner than the rest of us. Here in the mountains of northern New Hampshire we are lucky to have the occasional voice of Haviland Smith, a retired CIA station chief, giving his opinion in our local paper. Like Clark and Jim Webb, Smith opposed the invasion of Iraq from the start. He says this week in The Valley News: "Those Democratic members of Congress who fell for the Bush rationalization for the Iraq invasion and voted to enable it are, quite frankly, morally and politically compromised on this issue. Except for those few who have repudiated their own votes, they have lost their standing and credibility."

The Democrats are still in a state of denial RE the leadership failure they have been experiencing in this country over the last 25 years, particularly since Democrats lost the House and Senate and the will of the country in the mid-90s, giving an easy ride to the most egregious group of radicals ever to disgrace the Oval Office & its sacred space. Some Dems today want to go back to the '90s, some to the '60s, some to the '50s.

But there is no going back. There is only the trail ahead. When we fully face the Iraq crisis, the economic crisis and the leadership crisis we will press on Jim Webb, John Edwards, Wesley Clark and other Southern Insurgents which are sure to follow.

Monday, January 29, 2007

The Southern Insurgents

by Bernie Quigley - for The Free Market News Network, 1/29/07

An essay this weekend at The Daily Kos, "Sweeping Jim Webb Under the Rug,” brings out what I have been feeling all week: That we crossed a river in this country on Tuesday night with Jim Webb’s rebuttal of the President’s State of the Union. Jim Webb is Pathfinder to a new political country. His speech was very possibly the first important event in the new century.

I’ve actually been feeling it longer than that. When I first listened to one of Jim Webb’s speeches last Spring I wrote that he is possibly the most effective public speaker since Malcolm X. What I meant was that he had a friendly and engaging quality to his conversation and an earthy Southern appeal to common people, but at the same time he could scare the pants of you.

He scared them the other night. It is the first time Wall Street suits heard themselves called Robber Barons by a prominent Senator since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, Poncho Villa and Woody Guthrie.

The Daily Kos author, TocqueDeville, a prominent blogger and critic, claimed that only candidates today appealing to Wall St. are allowed to survive.

Said TocqueDeville: “I've argued for some time that the real bias in the media is not left or right per say. It is pro Wall Street. And never has this bias been more transparent than with the coverage of Jim Webb's response to the State of the Union address.

“My interest in the way the establishment media would react to Webb's speech began somewhere around the time he said "fairly" in the same sentence with "globalization" and "international marketplace." By the time he got to "robber barons" and "corporate influence,” I was speechlessly stumbling for my laptop.

“You see, there are just some things one does not say in proper company. Much less in a national address. And Jim Webb said a few of them.”

I would like to add that this Wall Street influence is a conditioning that most Americans themselves are constantly "programmed into" - a subtlety that they are acclimated to and not fully aware of, but likewise, this is only a skin (and an inauthentic one) which can and will fall away quickly and from which a new self can (and will) awaken.

What Webb brings forth is something which is underneath - something which is there already; something which has always been there, but something the Dems left behind 25 years ago. TocqueDeville quotes one of Webb’s advisers on the substance of this insurgency: “Recently, to explain the devotion and commitment working class Americans once had to the Democratic Party, Mudcat Saunders described how in the old days, people had two photographs on their living room wall: Jesus and Franklin D. Roosevelt.”

Jim Webb is bringing the Democrats to a new country. And it is increasingly clear now even to the head-in-the-sand corporate media and its bastard child, the info-entertainment industry, that there is a division now in the Democratic Party. There are the upscale Globalists who married into the concept mid-term into Reagan’s regime, and there are now the new economic populists. Webb leads the charge, but John Edwards and Wesley Clark are both beginning to speak the same language. Last week Clark was speaking Union to a church-basement crowd in Montgomery, AL; a crowd as far from Wall St. as one could imagine. I would like to see Senators Clinton, Dodd, Biden and Obama address these NASCAR Moms on the same topic.

It is hard not to notice that the new insurgents, Webb, Edwards and Clark, are all proudly Southern. And to the reality-based, this should come as no surprise, for everything of consequence that has happened in this country since Eisenhower, - from Elvis to Oprah with Little Richard, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Johnson, Tammy Faye Baker and the Intimidating #3 in the Big Black Car in between - has risen from the South. The demographics on economy and population demand it. And as Newt Gingrich once pointed out, the rise of his own movement 20 years back depended on the New York delusion that they still ran things. They are still reality impaired: These Democrats show who and what they are as they constantly seek the photo op with the Conspicuously Rich and Ostentatious, such as Virgin Atlantic Airways’ Richard Branson, Mick Jagger and Bill Gates.

But things are beginning to change quickly. Mainstream press has begun to look at Democratic front-runner Senator Clinton, darling of the DLC crowd, and find her leadership abilities to be less than sterling. On Sunday, Frank Rich of the NYTs calls her mission “unaccomplished.” He writes: “Mrs. Clinton has always been a follower of public opinion on the war, not a leader.”

The small fish follow the big fish. Her candidacy will begin to fade now. Likewise, Senator Obama, who draws almost exclusively white crowds and is pitched as well to the same audience of “upper working class” suburban whites as a Great White Hope. There is nothing wrong with Obama. He has been used and abused by the info-entertainment industry. His only flaw is that he allows himself to be.

I personally find Senators Clinton and Obama "brand marketed" to the "suburban" Democrats the author talks about to be appalling, with front-leading Democrats pitching a universal health care system to the denizens of Manhattan’s penthouse dwellers, billionaires and Nantucket dilettantes.

Harvard’s John Kenneth Galbraith warned Democrats about becoming the Party of the Very Rich in his 1992 book, “The Culture of Contentment” but he was ignored (and even despised) by the new group that had come to power in the Democratic Party which featured most prominently Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. Still they send forth their candidate to the Presidential Election today. (There is nothing new to this either: Back in South Boston we used to call the Democrats Galbraith criticizes, “Lace Curtain.”) But when the "new realization" begins to hatch, these “market brand” Democrats so comfy to Wall St. will pass quickly. The season has changed. It changed on Tuesday night.

Virginia has just crossed the psychological river sooner than the rest of us. Here in the mountains of northern New Hampshire we are lucky to have the occasional voice of Haviland Smith, a retired CIA station chief, giving his opinion in our local paper. Like Clark and Jim Webb, Smith opposed the invasion of Iraq from the start. He says this week in The Valley News: "Those Democratic members of Congress who fell for the Bush rationalization for the Iraq invasion and voted to enable it are, quite frankly, morally and politically compromised on this issue. Except for those few who have repudiated their own votes, they have lost their standing and credibility."

I would take it a step further and say that although it is good that they repudiated their vote, they showed failure of leadership at the critical moment and should not be considered for higher public office. Indeed, they should resign, as the phrase, “I take full responsibility,” which Senator Clinton used this week about her poor leadership on Iraq at the critical juncture, once implied voluntary retirement. Now it means nothing. Now it means: Let’s talk about something else. If they were hockey or football coaches they would be fired. (And their wives would not be allowed to coach their team after that, either. Visualize that, with the Chicago Bears or the Broad Street Bullies.) We should show them the same love and respect and send them home.

The Democrats are still in a state of denial RE the leadership failure they have been experiencing in this country over the last 25 years, particularly since Democrats lost the House and Senate and the will of the country in the mid-90s, giving an easy ride to the most egregious group of radicals ever to disgrace the Oval Office & its sacred space. Some Dems today want to go back to the '90s, some to the '60s, some to the '50s.

But there is no going back. There is only the trail ahead. When they fully face the Iraq crisis, the economic crisis and the leadership crisis they will press on Jim Webb, John Edwards, Wesley Clark and other Southern Insurgents sure to follow.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

DKos Diary and Raising Kaine Diary - 1/28/07 Visualize Wesley Clark

There is a brilliant essay recommended this morning on DKos: "Sweeping Jim Webb Under the Rug." The essay and the comments bring out what I have been feeling all week: That we crossed a river in this country on Tuesday night with Jim Webb’s rebuttal of the President’s State of the Union. Jim Webb is Pathfinder to a new political country. The author, TocqueDeville, claims that only candidates appealing to Wall St. are allowed to survive. I would like to add that this is a conditioning that most Americans themselves are "programmed into" - a subtlety that they are acclimated to and not fully aware of, but likewise, this is only a skin (and an inauthentic one) which can and will fall away quickly and from which a new self can (and will) awaken. What Jim brings forth is something which is underneath - something which is there already; something which has always been there, but something the Dems left behind 25 years ago.

I personally find Senators Clinton and Obama "brand marketed" to the "suburban" Democrats the author talks about to be appalling, with front-leading Democrats pitching a universal health care system to the denizens of Manhattan’s penthouse dwellers, billionaires and Nantucket dilettantes. Harvard’s John Kenneth Galbriath warned Democrats about becoming the Party of the Very Rich in his 1992 book, “The Culture of Contentment” but he was ignored (and even despised) by the new group which had come to power in the Democratic Party at that time and still sends forth its candidate to the Presidential Election today. (There is nothing new to this either: Back in South Boston we used to call the Democrats Galbraith criticizes, “Lace Curtain.”) But when the "new realization" begins to hatch, these “market brand” Democrats so comfy to Wall St. will pass quickly. The season has changed.

Already, things are changing quickly. Mainstream press has begun to look at Democratic front-runner Senator Clinton and find her leadership abilities to be less than sterling. Today, Frank Rich of the NYTs calls her mission “unaccomplished.” He writes: “Mrs. Clinton has always been a follower of public opinion on the war, not a leader.” The small fish follow the big fish. Her candidacy will begin to fade now. Likewise, Senator Obama, who draws almost exclusively white crowds and is pitched as well to the same audience of “upper working class” suburban whites as a Great White Hope. There is nothing wrong with Obama. He has been used and abused by the info-entertainment industry. His only flaw is that he allows himself to be.

We need someone new now to suit the new times ahead. We need Wesley Clark. Clark needs to enter in on this in the ’08 Presidential race. Jim Webb is Pathfinder on a trail which leads to Wesley Clark. They are on the same page of economic populism which Webb spoke of on Tuesday night. Last week Clark was speaking Union to a church-basement crowd in Montgomery, AL; a crowd as far from Wall St. as one could imagine. I would like to see Senators Clinton, Dodd, Biden and Obama address these NASCAR Moms on the same topic.

There is a clear division now in the Democratic Party. Webb and Wes are the opening Democratic Paradigm.

I was standing four feet away from Wes Clark when he signed the book in Concord, NH, to enter the primary and volunteered for him throughout the primary. Jim Webb is prelude to Wesley Clark. Virginia has just crossed the psychological river sooner than the rest of us. Here in the mountains of northern New Hampshire we are lucky to have the occasional voice of Haviland Smith, a retired CIA station chief, giving his opinion in our local paper. Like Wes and Jim Webb, Smith opposed the invasion from the start. He says this week in The Valley News: "Those Democratic members of Congress who fell for the Bush rationalization for the Iraq invasion and voted to enable it are, quite frankly, morally and politically compromised on this issue. Except for those few who have repudiated their own votes, they have lost their standing and credibility."

I would take it a step further and say that although it is good that they repudiated their vote, they showed failure of leadership at the critical moment and should not be considered for higher public office. Indeed, they should resign, as the phrase, “I take full responsibility,” which Senator Clinton used this week about her poor leadership on Iraq at the critical juncture, once implied voluntary retirement. Now it means nothing. Now it means: Let’s talk about something else. If they were hockey or football coaches they would be fired. (And their wives would not be allowed to coach their team after that, either. Visualize that, with the Chicago Bears or the Broad Street Bullies.) We should show them the same love and respect and send them home.

The Democrats are still in a state of denial RE the leadership failure we have been experiencing in this country over the last 25 years, particularly since Democrats lost the House and Senate and the will of the country in the mid-90s, giving an easy ride to the most egregious group of radicals ever to disgrace the Oval Office & its sacred space. Some Dems today want to go back to the '90s, some to the '60s, some to the '50s.

But there is no going back. There is only the trail ahead. When we fully face the Iraq crisis, the economic crisis and the leadership crisis we will press on with Jim Webb and Wesley Clark.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

DKos diary – 1/25/07: Jim Webb is Coyote, the Trickster

Recall Anthropology 101, at least as it was once taught, and the theories of heroes and gods rising in society to four level. This from William James, Sir James G. Frazer and Joseph Campbell. Any original social, cultural and political movement builds on four levels and rises to maturity with four different kinds of “gods.” The first level is Trickster, the Monkey God. In the United States Trickster is Coyote. Coyote’s only divine purpose is to change everything, to make it possible for the old to fall away, so the world can be born new again. Coyote Trickster changes the culture and the generations. After Coyote Trickster nothing is ever the same again. Jim Webb is Coyote. After his response to the President on Tuesday night, the political culture will be born again, entirely new and beholden to nothing which went before.

According to historians William Straus and Neil Howe, each historical post-war period is divided into four generations and last 80 years, with each generation having a 20-year run. Each generation also has its own gods, heroes, goddesses and Great Mothers, all starting with Coyote Trickster. I am 60 years old and a product of the Second Generation. The Coyote Trickster of my generation was Bob Dylan. It is said that the generations changed from first to second one afternoon in Newport when Dylan changed from a wooden guitar to an electric guitar in the region of 1965. Bob Dylan changed everything, but in particular, he changed the gods who would follow. Paul McCartney said that The Beatles enjoyed writing teen age love songs, but when they first heard Bob Dylan, they then desired to be artists. Today, on mainstream crappy radio and TV ads it is impossible not to see the influence of Dylan, Magical Animal and Coyote Trickster of Generation Two almost everywhere – hair, garments, attitude, tone of voice.

We enter now the Fourth Generation, the most critical generation, according to Strauss and Howe in their most provocative book, “The Fourth Turning.” Jim Webb will be Coyote Trickster to this new generation. Everything starts new with Trickster: Everything before is suddenly old. The shift in generations is like plate tectonics: Try to picture Dean Martin, probably the most popular singer in his day to First Generation in the mid 1950s, making a comeback after Dylan had brought forth “Like a Rolling Stone” and the Beatles “A Day in a Life.”

The waning generation always tries to stop the birth of the rising generation: Dylan’s record company refused to air his anthem, “Like a Rolling Stone” and he had to bypass normal channels – he had it played in a famous New York club called “Arthur’s” and from there it became an overnight sensation on radio. ‘Twas ever thus. When William Lloyd Garrison wanted to bring forth a new idea in 1831 he had to start his own newspaper and ignore the Conventional Religionists of the entrenched attitudes of previous generations. Likewise today, the blogs and the on-line independent journals do the same.

Commentators and historians who look for signs of “fourth generation” have looked to Daily Kos in the last year. Certainly older people read DKos today, but it began as a new generation’s approach to politics and a graph of its yearly readership in early days also pretty closely graphs the college year. In this Marcos is Monkey God.

Statistics bear out now the shift in generations is already taking place. Mainstream press, the end-game culture of previous generations two and three, present Senator Clinton as the leading candidate for the Presidency in ’08. Her appeal is largely from name recognition in the generic culture, and cash flow from her own generation which seeks to extend itself beyond its natural reign. DKos today has her placed fifth, and she has only in the last six months (when many more older people entered DKos) risen to four percnet from zero.

Jim Webb’s comments on Iraq on Tuesday night were clear and uncompromising: We knew all along, we were told at the beginning. Senator Clinton’s position, in an interview with John Roberts at CNN on Jan. 21 were: If only we knew now what we knew then. These are the same comments first brought forth my mainstream pundits of the right, David Brooks and George Will in particular, six months or so into the journey when it was clear that it the invasion of Iraq was a failed.

Indeed, we did know all along and were told at the beginning what would happen in Iraq by Jim Webb in the pages of The Washington Post. And we were told as well daily on the pages of DKos and the other political blogs and on-line journals.

Jim Webb is a folkloric character. He carries (as in a Glock 9) when he in not in the Senate and chews tobacco. He speaks proudly of being Scotch-Irish, the culture of the common people of Virginia and Appalachia, while Dems of Second Generation aspire to be billionaires and via for land deals in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Most Democrats in New England today share common roots with Webb, but might be called “upper working class” as they have left the common culture behind to seek instead the Manhattan penthouse. They might be called “Frasier” Democrats; in reference to the charming TV show of the ‘90s about two psychiatrist brothers who live Seattle’s penthouse culture, and whose father, who lives with them and sits in an old duct-taped chair, was a cop. It is a crisis of authenticy the generation suffers and is dramatically well presented as such in this long-running sit-com. Jim Webb experiences no such crisis. Webb brings to politics the love-based values of Appalachia – family, community, honor, responsibility to one’s fellows. He awakens once again in the Democratic Party its older heritage – the Party of the Common Man and Woman.

His speech in response to Bush’s State of the Union was one of the greatest speeches I have ever heard. It portends something new and astonishing happening within the Democratic Party. With it, the rising political generation has crossed the river to the new country. I think Old School senses it right away, as John Kerry might have when he decided not to run the next day. Rightly so. The season has changed.

Hearing Webb’s speech the other night commentator Mark Shields said “A star is born.” It is a star which will rise with a new generation and the values Webb brings to politics will become the values of that generation, as always, in opposition to the generations which came before. Marcos yesterday claimed Webb as his own; that is, as the product of the net roots. Rightly so. It doesn’t matter if the new culture in the Democratic Party finds success in 2008. Perhaps it will take longer for the old culture to fall away. But there is now no question that what is new in the Democratic Party will rise now with Jim Webb and a generation will rise with it which will bring new values to the Party and to the country over the next 20 years.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Jim Webb is a Living legend - DKos diary, 1/24/07

"I've been searching, looking for one good man. A spirit who would not bend or break who would sit at his father's right hand," - Johnny Cash, U2

On his first public day as a national figure, Jim Webb, rebutting Bush's State of the Union speech, is already a living legend. Historians will look to last night and today as the first day of the new century. It was one of the best speeches I have ever heard, bringing in the spirit of three great Americans to his rustic Virginia winter camp who changed the tide of history, Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower; Presidents who changed the world as much by the force of their personalities as by their insight and abilities. Webb will do the same. It is possible to see now something extraordinary awakening within the Demographic Party and something rising as well in the heart of the common man. In terms of policy discussion it was on a level with the greatest minds and the greatest strategists, but when he talked about bringing his father's picture to bed with him it made this grown man cry. It takes a real man to do that.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

It Depends on What You Mean by War?

by Bernie Quigley for The Free Market News Network 1/23/07

“If only we knew then what we know now.”

“I don’t think anyone expected it to turn out like this.”

These phrases became widely used a few months after the invasion of Iraq. Within a year they were part of the common parlance of mainstream commentators on Fox, CNN and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. But now they were coming from the same apparatchiks, fellow travelers, appeasers, accommodators and coat carriers that drove us into a murderous, tragic and illegal invasion of Iraq and brought about a crisis of confidence in America greater than any in our history.

The new voice is casual and passive: We didn’t expect this. It’s like something out of the ordinary happened; something that could not have been anticipated - something out of the blue, like a comet hit.

Something unexpected did happen. We lost.

I first heard this casual – “It’s not our fault.” – commentary from David Brooks, conservative columnist for The New York Times and a constant companion on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. The aggressive language and hubris leading up to the invasion was gone. The language came now as if with the white silk scarf of peace and a passive smile: “I don’t think anyone expected it to turn out like this.” You can’t blame us for that, although Brooks was one of the original Dungeons & Dragons Warriors at the Weekly Standard which advanced this war. I next heard it from George Will, ABC commentator and Washington Post columnist who, in whipping up war fever and ramping up for the invasion, accused Europe of anti-Semitism for not joining into this misguided adventure.

If we treated self-government with the same honor, dignity and respect we grant to sports, these people would be long gone from their perches, just as an honorable football coach would voluntarily retreat after systematic failure – and if he didn’t, we would fire him.

But in politics we don’t do that. We have in politics and in political writing apparently an unwritten “no fault” agreement. It doesn’t matter how wrong you are or how long you have been wrong. You’ll still be there every night, facing the same audience. Consider for a moment just in contrast, what an old-school coach from days of yore might say (say from the Chicago Bears): You have no honor. You are not real men. In a word, you are cowards.

More “feeling” management might buy these loser prognosticators computers. Everybody here knew. It was daily here in the on-line press, particularly in the Free Market News Network, but throughout the new journals on the web as well that this was a deception from the first, destined to fail, and destined to bring the greatest crisis in political management and leadership to our country since WW II.

But it is not like we have our own private stash of information and secret sources. Gary Hart, Wesley Clark, Brent Scowcroft and many others of the best minds in public policy predicted this quagmire on TV, in the daily press and in hundreds of public appearances, and predicted the long-term consequences of invasion of Iraq to a T.

Now, as predictable as twilight, these same comments come this week from Senator Clinton as she seeks the Presidency.

Here is John Roberts of CNN interviewing Senator Clinton this week.

ROBERTS: "On the subject of mistakes, your 2002 vote to authorize the war, was that a mistake? Do you regret it?

CLINTON: I've said that I regret the way the president uses, used the authority that he was given, and certainly, if we knew then what we know now, there would never have been a vote and I wouldn't have voted for it. I take responsibility for that.

ROBERTS: Was it a mistake to vote for it?

CLINTON: I know people are all hung up on the words here. I think it's very clear that, if we had known then what we know now, the president would never have been able to come to the Congress and ask for a vote. I believe that, you know, the case that was made then, which I saw as a way of checking Saddam Hussein, the sanctions regime was falling apart, putting inspectors in made sense. I said at the time I was not in favor of a pre-emptive war, and you know, I don't think you get do-overs in life. I think you take responsibility for the decisions that you make and you try to make the situation better, which is what I've been trying to do consistently."

Wow. Did somebody say Wow? As in Wow: What planet are we on now?

It’s not the words we are hung up on. It is the substance. But on planet Clinton, on which the party of the common man morphed into the party of the very, very, very rich, language became a tool that no longer meant anything. It was instead, a kind of theater. What mattered was not what you said, but how you said it and how you looked when you said it, and how the words subtly seemed to surround the questioner instead and accuse him of something. Because the questioner was, in the very act of asking a question, challenging your authority and your natural-born right to govern. He was, after all, the enemy.

Again we enter the realm of Clintonailia. I can almost hear the Senator now: It depends on what you mean by war.

The Senator says she takes full responsibility for her vote which, in the NFL as in all of the world’s history, once meant: I have disgraced my country, I have disgraced my team, I have not measured up and have not achieved what I had promised you I would and I retreat in love and respect: I resign.

It now means: Let’s talk about something else.

This is soccer mom politics in which everybody gets the trophy.

To treat her as an honest, equal, human citizen, Roberts should first have asked: Doesn’t the million dollar gift given to your husband by close Libby associate Marc Rich, which one well-known Democratic activist called “legal bribery” when you were First Lady call into question your objectivity in voting for the Iraq invasion? Or voting for anything else as a representative of the people for that matter?

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Are Wes Clark and Jimmy Carter Anti-Semites?

By Bernie Quigley - for The Free Market News Network 1/20/07

It is interesting that the neocons, who have nurtured such twisted and dark policy initiatives as we have recently seen took as their original guiding moral light Arthur Koestler, a key figure in the European Popular Front, who later rejected Communism. The Popular Front was made up of Communists and sympathizers in Europe called fellow travelers, who sought to insinuate influence throughout France and Germany during and after the Russian Revolution. Much as writers like Charles Krauthammer do today in The Washington Post and a variety of others on the pages of the LA Times and now, even to the embarrassment of William F. Buckley, Jr., at The National Review. The “soft” side of propaganda today seems entirely inspired by the agitational propaganda strategies used in Europe by operatives like Koestler.

He may be forgotten now or known only for his writings on depth psychology as it was pioneered by Wolfgang Pauli and C.G. Jung, but in the 1950s, Koestler was one of the most important men of his times. In the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn , where savage divisions erupted among Stalinists, socialists and anti-communists, Koestler was a hero. He courageously turned his back on the God that Failed, and their strategies and propaganda methods, when many of his colleagues did not.

Koestler wrote two books on interrogation and torture. In Darkness at Noon he asked how a man like himself could be seduced into the Personality Cult of Stalin and a movement that advocated and practiced torture, as the Stalinists did with such proficiency. Koestler, who bears an astonishing resemblance to Paul Wolfowitz, at one time suggested names in France and Germany which were sent up to Stalin for torture and execution. Later, he offered a different point of view from the torture advocates of today, referring to them as “the scum of the earth” in a second book on torture.

There is nothing wrong with being a Fellow Traveler on an issue. Indeed, it is good citizenship. But what brings the movement to power is the fact that the country is too frightened, timid or stupid to respond. The mainstream allows itself to be intimidated: The Popular Front relies for its effect on the poor citizenship and weakness on the part of everybody else not part of its group.

We saw it working twice this week. First when The Jerusalem Post took out an ad calling Wesley Clark and anti-Semite because he said in a passing conversation to Ariana Huffington that “ New York money people” were pushing war with Iran . The Jerusalem Post declared that this associated money with Jews and was thus anti-Semite. The mainstream press shuffled and submitted, tugging on its forelock, and the story echoed cross the wires. I was reminded of an another news article years back about a black man who said black people didn’t like gardening because it reminded them of slavery (working the land, get it?). An article like this in a healthy citizenship would normally provoke choked laughter, but this was reprinted in the major newspapers.

Wesley Clark opposes the invasion of Iran , which Israeli strategists have since publicly proposed Israel do by itself. Clark , whose father was a Jew, refused to capitulate. He responded: "I will not tolerate anti-Semitic conspiracy webs to permeate the honest debate Americans must have about how best to confront Iran."

But it is the willingness to submit by others in the press and in politics which brings a kind of moral cowardice that seeps the life force from the country. It is this weakness of character which forms a Congress which appeases and accommodates neocon agenda, advances egregious torture strategies unknown since the Enlightenment and repeals habeas corpus.

The tool of the Popular Front and its fellow travelers was called agitational propaganda; it was the use of language and the media to deceive, confuse and disturb the moral base of the middle class. Key to this strategy was finding an individual who represented the culture at large as a paragon of virtue, and slandering that individual. Apparently in Stalin’s day people had come to believe anything. Today again, perhaps: Go to The Washington Post and read Deborah Lipstadt’s essay, “Jimmy Carter’s Jewish Problem.”

Lipstadt presents President Carter, a Noble Peace Prize laureate, as an anti-Semite, comparing him with David Duke. The essence of her argument is that when Carter writes about the situation in Palestine and the Middle East in his recent book, “ Palestine : Peace, not Apartheid” he doesn’t take the Holocaust fully into consideration (although, she concedes, “nitpickers” might say that the Holocaust did no happen in the region.)

This is the kind of thing one might expect from the Chinese Communist Party which learned its strategies from the likes of Arthur Koestler and his colleague Michael Borodin – indeed it is quite similar to the Chinese government’s consistent attacks on the Dalai Lama: His Holiness never considers the Rape of Nanking, the Japanese invasion and China’s inherent sensitivity and discomfort with neighbors of any kind.

Koestler wrote that fascism came to Europe because the Europeans allowed themselves to be intentionally deceived by both fascists and communists. We are seeing it again in a propaganda storm against our most honorable and courageous people.

Monday, January 15, 2007

- exclusive to WesPAC:

Bernie Quigley

Haverhill, NH

Waiting for America’s Son:

Why Wes Must Run

The surge is George W. Bush’s greatest strategic error in a sterling legacy of greatest hits. Had he listened to the Baker Commission, he could have crafted a graceful and responsible turn around which most Americans would have welcomed and honored.

But by ignoring the wise council of Baker’s bipartisan council, Bush has instead awakened new voices in the Democratic Party; like New Hampshire’s formidable Carol Shea-Porter, who entered Congress this month, and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders.

This will no longer be a Congress which appeases and accommodates neocon agenda, advances egregious torture strategies unknown since the Enlightenment and repeals habeas corpus. It is becoming instead a Congress of real warriors, like Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania and the new Senator from Virginia, Jim Webb, whose constituents today wear bumper stickers which read: “My Senator is Fearless.” Increasing, it is a Congress which looks to soldiers for strategic thinking as well, like Wesley Clark, which journalist Tom Rinaldo calls “the peace candidate for 2008.”

But the President, who’s Yale undergraduate colleagues recall him to be a relentless player of Risk: The Game of Global Domination at a time when Clark and Webb were getting shot to pieces serving their country, is constitutionally incapable of strategic thinking.

Anyone with eyes can see a new awakening in Congress. But much of the mainstream press refuses to look. For the most part it is a state of denial. They are just hoping the leadership crisis will go away and things will go "back to normal." There will be no going back. The Democrats now have the initiative and they should go forward without looking back. This is the crisis which will bring us forward and will bring a new political generation to power.

In 2006, we found ourselves at the edge of a river and this year we will cross that river. INVARIABLY, polling, objectivity, statistics, previous patterns and the rational path fail at moments like this. Instinct and intuition are the better guide. Nature is calling forth something new. We already know who the leader will be who will lead us across the river.

In the primary of ’04, which was the coldest winter on record here in New Hampshire, I brought a lot of people in to warm by the fire who were campaigning for Democratic candidates. Most were campaigning for Howard Dean. When I said that I was a volunteer for Wesley Clark, invariably they said that they would like to see Wesley Clark as Vice President in a Dean Presidency. Howard Dean did not really want to be President; he knew he did not want to be – but his followers found in him a comfort – I would call it denial of the crisis and a denial of the responsibility to face it – but beneath that they saw the authentic figure, Wesley Clark. Kerry people wanted Clark as VP as well. Everybody did.

Then when Clark said, "I’m not going to be Howard Dean’s Dick Cheney," it revealed to everyone what they already knew: They wanted Wes Clark to run the show as Dick Cheney runs Bush’s show: They wanted Wes Clark to be the President. He is the one necessary ingredient to face the leadership crisis today in America. His progress will be a graph of our willingness to face the crisis; as his line goes up, the other lines will go down. He will be the one indispensable ingredient and the rest of us will be ready to cross the river with him in the upcoming year.

Here are two real-world, reality-based reasons why General Clark should run for President in 2008: Demographics and Generational Shift.

Demographics: The burial ceremonies for President Ford have reminded us of what decent people we Americans can be. They also put into perspective how our world has changed since his Presidency. And from then until now, most every influential cultural figure has been from the South: Jimmy Carter, Johnny Cash, Pat Robertson, Otis Redding, Little Richard, Tammy Faye Baker, Bill Clinton, Oprah, Jimmy Johnson, Jimmy Swagger, Waylon Jennings, the Intimidating # 3 in the Big Black Car. This will continue. The North used to be the Red States. Now they are Blue. We are seeing the historic rise of indigenous America – America formed of red clay, Texas desert, Delta mud and Appalachian prayer and song – beholding to no one who came before from Europe, Africa or anywhere else.

General Clark is the American Son who epitomizes this change in demographics and history. He will begin to give a new Democratic Party and a new century shape, sense and sensibility. And his is the federalist sensibility – he is at home with old-time honored but injured veterans who drink in the morning at the Legion Hall, just as he is at the Four Seasons with George Soros. He advanced candidates in the ’06 races throughout Tennessee, Arkansas and the heartland and in New York City as well. This is most important in 2008 as the variety of candidates who have so far entered from the Northeast or are expected to – Senators Kerry, Clinton, Dodd and Biden – are likely to gather few electoral votes in Texas, Oklahoma or any other red state and will offer any Republican opponent an easy ride.

Generational Shift: We are at the cusp of a major shift in generations as the fourth post-war generation rises to power. 2006 was the year of the turning.

Each generation is superseded by the next, which countervails the values of the last. Each needs entirely new heroes, new monks & poets, new goddesses, new Great Mothers and artists. As historians William Strauss and Neil Howe point out in their studies on generational dynamics, generational culture can change in an afternoon. It is said that the culture of the first generation changed to the second when Bob Dylan changed from a wooden guitar to an electric one on an evening in Newport in 1965. The culture changes with a single individual and the character of that individual becomes the character of the new group, the new generation, and then the character of the country during that generation’s reign. The fourth generation is characteristically awakened by a Gray Champion, often a veteran from a former war, who stands alone in defiance of an intimidating force and changes the political tide.

When we look back years from now, we will look at 2006 as the beginning of the new century. There has been a tendency until now to look for the "new" Roosevelt, or the "new" Kennedy, or to see in a new candidate something which reminds us of a former period. It is a natural healthy yearning for the "return of the king." But it is spiritually debilitating. When Aragorn arrives, the yearning subsides.

General Clark is neither the new JFK nor the new Roosevelt. He is himself. He can be that individual for generational change. There have been many opportunities for Democratic leadership to step forth in this process in the last six years. Again and again and again and again at each critical turning, only General Clark has taken the initiative.

The upcoming primary can change the sensibilities of the Democrats and the Democrats need to be changed. I have no doubt that we can win in ’08. The Republicans are in free-fall and come to a dead end with the current mischief of President Bush and his Dungeon & Dragon Warriors. But winning is not enough. If we win with a nostalgia candidate who doesn’t advance the new political generation or one who reminds us of past glory, it will be a vain effort and a one-term Presidency.

Of all potential candidates, only Wesley Clark brings the needed core of leadership to the country. The truth is, new movements, new Congresses and new generations cannot turn on old leadership.

I’m all about Wes. I’m looking forward to his new book. I especially want to hear more about his early childhood transition from Chicago to Arkansas and the turning of events during Bosnia which he spoke about up here at New England College last spring. Bosnia paralleled my own life, as I was a kind of student advisor at a Southern university at the time. The students were left adrift when the President, with Elie Wiesel standing behind him, said publicly that he didn’t know what to do. That brought a critical American turning point – from then until now, we haven’t known what to do in foreign policy unless General Clark told us what to do.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

DKos diary, 1/10/07 - A Congress of Peeps: Potential for an American Coup D’etat

The representative discourse on Iraq is now between Wesley Clark and John McCain. On Jan. 7 and 8 Senator McCain and General Clark stated their positions on the op-ed pages of The Washington Post. Clark was the first to speak up in opposition at this critical juncture; just as the President refutes again learned advice and commits himself to a surge in troops and the neocon agenda. Clark and McCain are now the Single Combat Warriors for the two positions on Iraq.

This is Senator McCain’s position published by the Post on January 7: “The presence of additional coalition forces would allow the Iraqi government to do what it cannot accomplish today on its own – impose its rule throughout the country.” He says he knows accelerating the deployment of troops is a “terrible sacrifice” and the troops will be disappointed, but then, “ . . . they will shoulder their weapons and do everything they can to protect our country’s vital interests in Iraq, and win this war.”

General Clark writes on January 8: “The truth is that the underlying problems are political, not military. . .Absent. . . fundamental change in Washington's approach, there is little hope that a troop surge and accompanying rhetoric will be anything other than "staying the course" more. That wastes lives and time, bolsters the terrorists and avoids facing up to the interrelated challenges posed by a region in crisis.”

Senator Kennedy gave a dramatic speech yesterday opposing the surge and placed a posting on DKos, which links Clark to Kennedy in stepping forth first on the issue. Kerry undoubtedly will follow with his Senate mate – indeed, Senator Kerry spoke up in general opposition to the McCain surge in a Washington Post essay on December 24. Gary Hart, one of the best minds in Democratic politics and consistent from the first on Iraq, has also posted a brilliant essay this morning at The Huntington Post.

But this is most important. The headline in today’s Washington Post reads: “With Iraq Speech, Bush to Pull Away From His Generals.”

“When President Bush goes before the American people tonight to outline his new strategy for Iraq, he will be doing something he has avoided since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003: ordering his top military brass to take action they initially resisted and advised against.”

This is the new political matchup: Clark, Kerry, Kennedy and the Generals. And on the other hand: Bush, McCain, the neocons, 12 Republican Senators, the Christian Zionists and the Terry McAuliffe agency with its new Gray Champion, Hillary Clinton. Senator Clinton has supported and endorsed the invasion of Iraq from the first, and now her silence on the issue is deafening.

General Clark can now count on support from the Northeast and its traditional New England liberals, represented by Kennedy and Kerry. For you all out of state, it is natural for us in New England to think of ourselves as apart from New Yorkers - most old timers I knew up here in northern New Hampshire were not really all that impressed when the Red Sox won the World Series a few years back; all they really cared about was winning the Pennant against the NY Yankees.

Kerry has been encouraged by New England politicians to commit to running or not. They want to place their bets either with Senator Clinton or Senator Obama. Had the Iraq debate shifted after the Baker report, Clinton and Obama might have been reasonable candidates to agree with Northeastern sensibilities. But it is clear now that Bush will not yield on this and McCain is now fostering the neocon agenda.

If Senator Kerry declines to run for President in ‘08, he could well throw his support to Wesley Clark. In doing so, he would help bring the Northeast with him. Kerry admires General Clark, as could be seen in his speech at the Democratic Convention, which owed much to Wesley Clark. I believe he would have wanted General Clark as his VP, but Clark had already made clear earlier that he sought no such position.

And I think now in particular Kerry has no love for the McAuliffe/Clinton camp, as McAuliffe will be running a regular dog and pony show promoting his new book in the next few months & publicly besmirching Kerry's reputation. (A “revealing and waggish memoir . . .” writes one pundit.) We Yanks hate that. Our trusty local Boston columnists and pundits have also abandoned Kerry as well, ramping up for Senator Clinton.

I'd like to see a solid veterans' Quaternary: Clark, Kerry, Jim Webb, John Murtha unite here - I know Webb says he hated Kerry's guts and wouldn't talk to him for 20 years, but he is a genuine individual and said in his Virginia primary campaign when asked if he still hated Kerry, that after 9/11 all his anger fell from him. As it should have all Americans. In this, Clark, Webb and John Murtha could help bring us in the Northeast into the American mainstream and help dissolve red state/blue state contention. In a way, the fate of the Northeast could lie today in Senator Kerry's hands.

But something else has happened here: Something vast. Today, for the first time in our American history, we have the potential for a revolt of the Generals; an actual coup d’etat.

We are now committed to the same path to failure which we took in Vietnam, but now the stakes are much higher.

This is not Vietnam. Today, in the climate after 9/11, we Americans honor our soldiers and the truth is we did not in Vietnam. Most of the military commanders at the helm today served in Vietnam. They don’t like the way they were treated then by Congress, by the war Presidents, by Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense in that period (who wrote years later that throughout he hadn’t a clue) and by the American people. There is still blood on their hands.

Among the best and brightest at the military command today there are vows by these honorable warriors never to let that happen again. Now it is happening again, and Bush is treating the volunteer Army and Marine Corps like peasants swooped up by the handful by Peter the Great, endlessly away from their families and loved ones and off to fight the Suleiman. But there is potential now and it is entirely possible that Bush today faces a revolt by military commanders.

It would be in fact, an American coup d’etat.

Technically, we are approaching that phase of political devolution. Coup d’etat occurs organically in tribal or underdeveloped countries or emerging democracies when elected or traditional political institutions fail.

In the last six years we have seen the failure of a Congress of Peeps in voting for a war resolution it knew to be a deception and even more so we have seen a complete failure of the press at the highest ranks. The press accommodated, appeased and enabled war fever and absolutely egged on the Dungeon & Dragons warriors in the Oval Office. We have seen the failure of the Supreme Court in propping up an illegal election. And most important, we have seen the failure of the American people who let this all come to pass with nothing more than an effete, deconstructivist pout.

The Judiciary, the Legislative, the Executive, the Press, the People: In the last six years we have experienced a catastrophic failure of American self-government. The only other major institution left in this country with its honor intact is the military.

Monday, January 08, 2007

DKos diary, 1/8/06 - Wesley Clark is Aragorn

The administration needs a new strategy for the region, before Iran gains nuclear capabilities. While the military option must remain on the table, America should take the lead with direct diplomacy to resolve the interrelated problems of Iran's push for regional hegemony and nuclear power, the struggle for control of Lebanon, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Isolating our adversaries hasn't worked.

Absent such fundamental change in Washington's approach, there is little hope that a troop surge and accompanying rhetoric will be anything other than "staying the course" more. – General Wesley Clark in today’s Washington Post.

General Clark lucidly addresses the situation in the Middle East in relationship to the troop surge. His has been the one and only steady hand in this from the first. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. Yesterday’s NYTs had a cheeky article about the new “Alpha Male Democrats” with Jim Webb in the center of the picture. It was a reluctant first recognition by the mainstream press that something new is taking place within the Democratic Party. It will rise with the new Congress. There has been a tendency ‘till now to look for the “new” Roosevelt, or the “new” Kennedy, or whatever. It is a natural healthy yearning for the “return of the king.” It is spiritually debilitating. But when Aragorn arrives, the yearning subsides.

The new Congress is the matrix for this new change. They will need new leaders. Wesley Clark is Aragorn, awakening in this new matrix the new paradigm; it will be the building block and consensus vortex for a new generation in Congress and in the country. As historians William Strauss and Neil Howe point out, new periods always start with one individual, and the character of that individual becomes the new character of the new group, then the character of the country. General Clark is that individual. There have been many opportunities for Democratic leadership to step forth in this process in the last six years. Again and again and again and again at each critical turning, only General Clark has taken the initiative. The truth is that a new Congress and a new political generation cannot turn on old leadership.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

from The London Independent:

Wesley Clark: Bush's 'surge' will backfire

The rise in troop numbers could reduce the urgency for political effort

Published: 07 January 2007

The odds are that President George Bush will announce a "surge" of up to 20,000 additional US troops in Iraq. But why? Will this deliver a "win"? The answers: a combination of misunderstanding and desperation; and, probably not.

The recent congressional elections - which turned over control of both houses to the Democrats - were largely a referendum on President Bush, and much of the vote reflected public dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq. Most Americans see the US effort as failing, and believe that some different course of action must be taken. Most favour withdrawing forces soon, if not immediately. The report of the Iraq Study Group is widely seen as a formal confirmation of US failure in Iraq.

The country's action there has been the very centrepiece of the Bush presidency. With two years left in office, he would, of course, try to salvage the situation. Many Americans remember the 1975 evacuation of the US embassy in Saigon, with desperate, loyal Vietnamese friends clinging to the skids of the American helicopters. No one wants that kind of an ending in Iraq. And our friends and allies in the region are also hoping for the US to pull some kind "rabbit from the hat", even if it seems improbable, for a US failure would have grave consequences in the region. Iran, especially, is the beneficiary of a failure, and al-Qa'ida will also try to claim credit.

From the administration's perspective, a troop surge of modest size is virtually the only remaining action inside Iraq that will be a visible signal of determination. More economic assistance is likely to be touted, but in the absence of a change in the pattern of violence, infrastructure enhancement simply isn't practical. And if the President announces new Iraqi political efforts - well, that's been tried before, and is there any hope that this time will be different?

As for the US troops, yes, several additional brigades in Baghdad would enable more roadblocks, patrols, neighbourhood clearing operations and overnight presence. But how significant will this be? We've never had enough troops in Iraq - in Kosovo, we had 40,000 troops for a population of two million. For Iraq that ratio would call for at least 500,000 troops, so adding 20,000 seems too little, too late, even, for Baghdad. Further, in a "clear and hold" strategy, US troops have been shown to lack the language skills, cultural awareness and political legitimacy to ensure that areas can be "held", or even that they are fully "cleared". The key would be more Iraqi troops, but they aren't available in the numbers required for a city of more than five million with no reliable police - nor have the Iraqi troops been reliable enough for the gritty work of dealing with militias and sectarian loyalties. Achieving enhanced protection for the population is going to be problematic at best. Even then, militia fighters in Baghdad could redeploy to other areas and continue the fight there.

What the surge would do, however, is put more American troops in harm's way, further undercut US forces' morale, and risk further alienation of elements of the Iraqi populace. American casualties would probably rise, at least temporarily, as more troops are on the streets; we saw this when the brigade from Alaska was extended and sent into Baghdad last summer. And even if the increased troop presence initially intimidates or frustrates the contending militias, it won't be long before they find ways to work around the obstacles to movement and neighbourhood searches, if they are still intent on pursuing the conflict. All of this is not much of an endorsement for a troop surge that will impose real pain on the already overstretched US forces.

There could be other uses for troops, for example, accelerating training for the Iraqi military and police. But even here, vetting these forces for their loyalty has proven problematic. Therefore, neither accelerated training nor more troops in the security mission can be viewed mechanistically, as though a 50 per cent increase in effort will yield a 50 per cent increased return, for other factors are at work.

The truth is that, however brutal the fighting in Iraq for our troops, the underlying problems are political. Vicious ethnic cleansing is under way right under the noses of our troops, as various factions fight for power and survival. In this environment security is unlikely to come from smothering the struggle with a blanket of forces - it cannot be smothered easily, for additional US efforts can stir additional resistance - but rather from more effective action to resolve the struggle at the political level. And the real danger of the troop surge is that it undercuts the urgency for the political effort. A new US ambassador might help, but, more fundamentally, the US and its allies need to proceed from a different approach within the region. The neocons' vision has failed.

Well before the 2003 invasion, the administration was sending signals that its intentions weren't limited to Iraq; Syria and Iran were mentioned as the next targets. Small wonder then that Syria and Iran have worked continuously to meddle in Iraq. They had reason to believe that if US action succeeded against Iraq, they would soon be targets themselves. Dealing with meddling neighbours is an essential element of resolving the conflict in Iraq. But this requires more than border posts, patrols and threatening statements. Iran has thus far come out the big winner in all of this, dispensing with long-time enemy Saddam, gaining increased influence in Iraq, pursuing nuclear capabilities and striving to enlarge further its reach. The administration needs a new strategy for the region now, urgently, before Iran can gain nuclear capabilities.

America should take the lead with direct diplomacy to resolve the interrelated problems of Iran's push for regional hegemony, Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Isolating adversaries hasn't worked. The region must gain a new vision, and that must be led diplomatically by the most powerful force in the region, the United States.

Without such fundamental change in Washington's approach, there is little hope that the troops surge, Iraqi promises and accompanying rhetoric will amount to anything other than "stay the course more". That wastes lives and time, perpetuates the appeal of the terrorists, and simply brings us closer to the showdown with Iran. And that will be a tragedy for not just Iraq but our friends in the region as well.

Retired General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of Nato, is a senior fellow at UCLA's Burkle Center for International Relations

Friday, January 05, 2007

Why Wes Will Win

As anyone who has read my other blog, Quigley in Exile, will have noticed, I am a Buddhist and my first interests in life are dreams, art and patterns of culture as they evolve and erupt from the Unconscious to the everyday world. This can be expressed as thinking about character rather than objectivity. Zen is about character. All journalism and all life in the West since the 15000s is objective. But what I do follows in zen and Taoismdescribed as “the path of integrity.” When times are flush, anyone and their wife can be President. Daryll can be President. But invariably, strengths yields to disorder and nature calls forth character again. I wanted to explain my perspective in light of that.

In the 1940s and ’50 psychoanalysis was in fashion and a number of interesting perspectives first appeared in the West. Norman O. Brown’s Life Against Death is useful, particularly to formative minds. Brown combined what was current psychological theory with sociology and politics to point out that culture behaves collectively much as individuals do. One of Freud’s observations was that neurotics don’t remember, they repeat. That is, when someone is inhibited and blocked from the natural flow of her or his inner life, they reach a blank wall when they try to go inward, as everyone must. That individual is compelled outward; compelled to Extroversion, but cannot make progress in the phases of life as one phase leads naturally to another. Instead, the individual substitutes a novelty for real experience and will go off on a tangent. When the novelty wears off, the individual is left again in fear, facing the gaping maw of the inner life and the source of obsession and fear. He adopts another novelty, and his life becomes a string of novelty in sequence, with short breaks in between.

Brown made the same point about society. When a society or a subculture in society becomes afraid to go forward in life it will substitute a novelty for true, authentic experience. Likewise, it will substitute a string of novelties in a row: it is a question of substituting easy inauthentic experience for difficult authentic experience. But even authentic experience can have inauthentic qualities, depending on the individual. Working for the poor is authentic, but if someone works for the poor to get away from his wife and family and family (dharma) responsibilities, working for the poor is inauthentic behavior. Furthermore, all societies go in sequence, with one idea following another. When authentic goals are achieved, a healthy person and society goes on to the new day and leaves the past behind. Neurotic societies, like individuals, repeat themselves.

But in times of crisis, all people become afraid of the difficult task ahead, and war is the most difficult task. Lord Krishna’s most famous speech to Arguna, in the Baghavad Gita, was on the battlefield. Arguna, at the moment of crisis, hesitated and adopted a pacifist stance. But all life crises are the same. It is natural as well that when society has been away from real crisis for a long time, it becomes apprehensive in facing difficult duty: Paris was occupied by the Nazis for two years before the Americans finally took to action.

We are at that point of crisis today. Classically, societies face their greatest crisis between the 60th and 65 year of the post-war life cycle; it is the end of the third generation and the beginning of the fourth, which arrives in crisis and builds the world new again.

Today the press and the rank and file in politics largely have not addressed the crisis at hand. For the most part, they are just hoping the leadership crisis will go away and things will go “back to normal.” There will be no going back. This is the crisis which will bring us forward and bring a new generation to dominance.

There is almost a hysterical call today for Senators Obama and Clinton. Neither of these are inherently prepared to a management position as critical as the Presidency. Neither addresses the challenges. They are both novelty and inauthentic candidates in that they attempt to bring forth in the public a moment of the past; Senator Clinton is a Sixties generational figure while Obama is reminiscent in his early writing of both Malcolm X and Richard Wright, leading figures of the ‘50s. Neither of these figures has the strength to address the crisis; Senator Clinton especially has appeased and empowered the right-wing throughout the crisis. When we face and overcome the crisis, those who appeased will be remembered much as Pierre Laval and Marshall Petain are remembered in France.

There is a psychological dimension to this: everyone knows this – it just has not yet appeared in the Conscious mind yet because we are not yet ready to face the difficult task our duty demands. We are not yet ready to cross that river. Howard Dean is a novelty candidate as well.

But we also know what we need to do when we find the courage to cross the river. INVARIABLY, moments like this leave objectivity, marketing statistics and the rational path and default to character. We already know who the character is who will lead us across the river.

In the primary of ’04, which was the coldest winter on record here in New Hampshire, I brought a lot of people in to warm by the fire who were campaigning for candidates. Most were campaigning for Howard Dean. When I said that I was a volunteer for Wesley Clark, invariably they said that they would like to see Wesley Clark as Vice President in a Dean Presidency. Howard Dean did not really want to be President; he knew he did not want to be – but his followers found in him a comfort – I would call it denial of the crisis and the emergency and a denial of the responsibility to face it – but beneath that they saw the authentic figure, Wesley Clark. They will reach to General Clark when they muster the character to face their duty ahead. Kerry people wanted Clark as VP as well. Everybody did.

General Clark has been a solid state figure from then until now. None of the other candidates have any sense of urgency, or shock, of disbelief when the administration takes another further step into arrogance, hubris and illegality. Only Clark has stepped forth to address the issues – it is an innate force; the natural personality which come to born leaders.

In the ’04 primary season when Clark said, “I’m not going to be Howard Dean’s Dick Cheney,” it revealed to everyone what they already knew: They wanted Wes Clark to run the show as Dick Cheney runs the show: They wanted Wes Clark as President. He is the one necessary ingredient to face the leadership crisis today in America. His progress will be a graph of our willingness to face the crisis; as his line goes up, the other lines will go down. He will be the one indispensable ingredient and the rest of us will be ready to cross the river with him by April.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Al Gore, Save Us

by Bernie Quigley, for The Free Market News Network, 1/4/07

One of the first principles of the psychology of people in groups, first expressed by the father of modern psychology, William James, is that groups take their initial spark from an avatar or leader driven by the spirit. The group then selects leadership to encapsulate that spirit to bring it forward as it was originally perceived. The walls thickens over the ages and the spirit gets entrapped. No new thinking is allowed and the spirit withers. It happens in politics as well; they so love the avatar that they build a religion around him.